From “Death of Innocence” released in March 17, 2000Written by John and Patsy Ramsey

DOI Pg 232

A few days later, another telling story hit the newspapers, reporting that the police had been asking our friends if they owned shoes or boots with the brand SAS or Hi-Tec. We did not own either brand, and the police were trying to explain away the footprint they had found in the cellar near JonBenet's body. Obviously, the SAS or Hi-Tech footprint could be an important piece of evidence.

DOI Pg 3737. The footprint by JonBenet's body. In the basement room where I found JonBenet, a funguslike mildew grew on the floors and walls due to the moist climate of the room. This room had no windows and was concrete on four sides and on the ceiling. Next to JonBenet's body the killer, I believe, left a clear footprint made by the sole of a Hi-Tec hiking shoe, from the area at the heel where the brand name was stamped. The markings are clear and should further help identify the killer.

From “JonBenet, Inside The Ramsey Investigation”Released April 11, 2000, written by Steve Thomas

ST Page 236

We spent a long day going over every possible weak point. A Hi-Tec boot print found on the wine cellar floor where the body was discovered had not been identified. Neither had one of the palm prints on the cellar door. The DA's office still refused to allow testing of the

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confusing pubic hair found on the white blanket wrapped around JonBenet.

(SNIP)

The Hi-Tec boot print became one of the biggest questions of the investigation. Since Hi- Tecs are popular among cops, a year after the murder I became convinced that a sight-seeing law enforcement officer stepped somewhere he or she shouldn't have on December 26 and didn't want to admit it.

Detective Ron Gosage had the impossible job of trying to identify the origin of the boot print, a nightmare assignment if there ever was one. He contacted more than four hundred people, even construction

ST Page 238workers who had been in the house five years ago, but did not find the matching print.

I doubted that any member of the Ramsey family would admit to owning a pair of Hi-Tecs, whether they did or not, but Detective Gosage had to ask them. That alerted Team Ramsey, and the defense lawyers and our DA's office soon began insisting that the unknown boot print was left behind by the intruder.

What they didn't know was that lab technicians had found not just one but three different unidentified shoe prints in that little room-the main print and two less pronounced impressions that overlapped each other. We considered that a positive development, for how likely would it be that three intruders carried the body into the room? And the possibilities were great that the print was totally unrelated to the murder. Just because something is found at the site of a murder doesn't mean it is part of the crime.

On a below-freezing winter day, I went with Gosage and another detective to Vail on a tip that a clerk recalled seeing Patsy and JonBenet try on hiking boots at Pepi Sports in that ski resort town. They might have been Hi-Tecs.

A bookkeeper carried in boxes crammed with thousands of receipts for everything from skis to bike rentals, and we hand-searched every one of them. It wasn't the first or the last hand search we made of receipts. In a Home Depot outside of Atlanta, Gosage and I had to check some twenty-five thousand individual records and journal rolls in a vain search for the possible purchase of cord and duct tape. A clerk said she had waited on Patsy Ramsey during such a transaction. We found nothing, and now we were doing it again in Vail.

"Why don't you just subpoena all the credit card records of the Ramseys?" asked the bookkeeper. .

"Long story." I was so tired of that question.

"Is the case as fucked up as it sounds? I mean, they've already finished TWA Flight 800, sentenced McVeigh to death for Oklahoma City, convicted Nichols, and are doing their thing with the Unabomber. Why are you guys taking so long?"

"Long story."

We found no receipts for the Ramseys, but a cash or check transaction would not have listed a name, unlike a credit card sale.

As with the palm print, the most frustrating part of the Hi- Tec hunt was the inexplicable lack of cooperation from other cops.

Two pairs of boots that were among the most difficult to retrieve belonged to Detective Sergeant Larry Mason and Detective Linda

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Arndt, both of whom had been in the house during the first hours. Arndt's clothing had been collected at the crime scene but not her footwear. It took a direct order from Commander Beckner before Arndt and Mason gave up their boots for testing, about a year after the murder, and it took still longer to get their fingerprints. Mason, the on-scene detective supervisor on December 26, had still not submitted a written report of his actions that day when I left after eighteen months.

A reserve sheriff's deputy who wore Hi- Tecs at the crime scene retained a lawyer before talking to Detective Gosage. Then we got the name of another patrol sergeant who had been in the basement that day. That was also a year late. At fourteen months, Gosage found that an FBI agent from Denver had been in the basement and owned Hi-Tecs. The final embarrassment in the Hi- Tec hunt came when Detective Gosage compared the radio log for December 26 with other reports and discovered that a number of boot-wearing law enforcement types had also been at the house but had never "aired out," or given their location, on the radio.

That meant we never really knew which cops, firefighters, paramedics, and sheriff's deputies were there. It seemed that everybody and their damned brother went wandering through the crime scene that day, and running them down was a virtual impossibility.

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The second possibility was that the flashlight was brought in by the intruder, used in the crime, then left behind in his haste to escape. To me, this was not consistent, for he had not hurried about anything else and, according to the intruder theorists, had carefully taken away other pieces of evidence such as the duct tape and cord. Since the flashlight held no fingerprints, did the intruder carefully wipe it down, inside and out, even the batteries, then just forget it? It didn't fit.

Besides its being the Ramseys', what also made sense was the third option, that some cop brought the heavy flashlight inside (they arrived before dawn) and left it on the counter by mistake. It was the Mag-Lite type preferred by policemen. That it bore no fingerprints was consistent with a piece of equipment being handled in cold weather by a cop wearing gloves. But we were unable to trace the serial number. And, like the palm print and Hi-Tec boot print, once the case blew up, no one wanted to claim ownership.

ST Page 271

On February 25 the mayor chewed me out. This politician was meddling in a criminal investigation, probably in violation of the city charter,

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and didn't know what the hell he was talking about, while Commander Beckner sat there watching, doing nothing to defend his detective.

Mayor Bob Greenlee wore khakis, loafers, a blue sports jacket, and no smile when I met him in Beckner's office. "The mayor wants to ask you a few questions," my boss said and retreated to a chair. "Detective," Mayor Greenlee began, all business. "What do you know about Jackie Dilson?" He gave me no chance to respond, and I had to suppress a grin. I knew all about Jackie Dilson, who was a regular visitor to police headquarters with her theory that her boyfriend probably murdered JonBenet.

Greenlee said he had personally met with Miss Dilson. "Did you know, detective, that her boyfriend, Chris Wolf, had Hi-Tec boots that Dilson purchased for him, that are by now undoubtedly in the bottom of some river? ..:

The second possibility was that the flashlight was brought in by the intruder, used in the crime, then left behind in his haste to escape.

<snip>
But we were unable to trace the serial number.

Jams,

Thanks for posting that excerpt.

That partially answers my question on the flashlight thread, but this makes it look like they only tried to track that particular number to an individual. I wonder if they tried to get any other information from Mag-Lite about date of manufacturing, where the flashlights in that range of serial numbers went, etc. Certain dates and distribution patterns could potentially be used to eliminate entire groups of people as owners.

There was some talk about the flashlight being lost - Linda Arndt said she was accused of losing it. But in her lawsuit Beckner came out and said no, it had not been lost at all.

Meanwhile, the Ramsey flashlight was kept in the drawer near the sink at the base of the spiral stairs - - and there is no reason to think it was not there when the movers packed up the house and carried all to Atlanta.

The flashlight - - I have not heard there was residue from the tape on it - - if he carried t in on another object, it may have been another object - like the stun gun?